


Beauties and the Beast

by AMX004_Qubeley



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Comfort/Angst, Extremely minor Drakengard references, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Illustrated, Premium Cuddly Dragon Content, Spoilers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Transformation, Wow what a surprise I wrote another fic about a Nier Automata character turning into not-a-robot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-27 23:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16712350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMX004_Qubeley/pseuds/AMX004_Qubeley
Summary: It is said that dragons hoard that which is most precious to them. When 2B inexplicably becomes one, there is only one thing she can think of collecting that will sate that urge. Fortunately, that which is most precious to her is not in short supply.





	Beauties and the Beast

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to branch out and write something in a really different style than usual as a gift for [pi, who drew the adorable art for this fic](https://twitter.com/bweph) (I came up with the idea, they drew the illustration, and then I had no choice but to write the story for real). Because I tend to rely on dialogue so much in all my other stuff, I decided to challenge myself and not use a single line of dialogue through the entire fic to make it a sort of silent-film fairy tale.
> 
> Many thanks to [wordbending](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordbending) for critiquing my rough draft and spurring me on to figure out how to actually write third-person omniscient perspective properly.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy it!
> 
> Also, my apologies to [Kiloueka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiloueka/pseuds/Kiloueka) for stealing the "2B/9S/9S/9S/9S/9S/9S/9S/9S/9S/9S/9S/9S/9S" tag from their fic, [Limbo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13952550/chapters/32117796). It's just such a good tag!

_Art credits: atapi ([tumblr](http://atapi.tumblr.com/)) ([twitter](https://twitter.com/bweph))_

* * *

Magic did not belong in this world. It was an outside force that invaded this world long, long ago, when a great stone beast and a red dragon fell from the sky and brought devastation with them. The Earth has long since healed from this… yet pockets of magic still lingered in the darkest corners of the world even nine thousand years later, lying in wait until they could be unleashed.

By fate or chance or happenstance, two androids found themselves near one of these pockets. A strange, vast castle protruding from the side of a stony mountain, looking as alien to its surroundings as if it had been scooped up from another world and deposited into this one. In fact, it _had_ been—it was a visitor from a world brimming with forces the inhabitants of this one could never hope to understand or control. It was a desolate place devoid of any life, mechanical or otherwise, and empty and silent as a mausoleum. Even animals feared this place, feeling its strange aura and recognizing how little it belonged in a world free of gods and dragons… but 2B and 9S, androids built to serve ersatz humans, lacked their common sense.

In fact, 9S lacked quite a bit of common sense, and naturally stuck his nose where it didn’t belong. Because of that, 2B, his companion, custodian, and undercover Type-E executioner unit, had received the order to kill him. Again.

It hurt 2B to do it. It always did. But soon the deed was done, just as it had been done the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that. His blood was spilled. Here in the catacombs hidden in the depths of this castle, where none, not even the heavens, could bear witness to her sin, 2B laid his body to rest and notified her superiors that the deed had been done.

She could never refuse her duty. Was it because of her devotion to the greater good? Or because she was simply too afraid of the consequences of refusing? She could never decide what lay in her heart, but one thing was certain: she hated herself either way.

When she stepped over the foreign castle’s threshold, the castle, unbeknownst to her—for how could she have known?—reached out with a ghostly, invisible hand to lay upon her its curse. None the wiser, she left the castle far behind and ventured into the woods that surrounded it.

With every step she took, the curse worked its magic, though it was not until she was halfway from the castle to the nearest camp that she noticed the strange, itchy growth marring the bare skin of her thigh beneath her skirt: A deformity of shiny, alabaster scales spreading across her skin. It was not the product of a logic virus, bane of androids like her—a quick self-diagnostic ruled that out—but its presence left her shaken and unnerved nevertheless.

2B picked up speed, growing shorter of breath with every step, her mind growing hazier and hazier. She could only ascribe her symptoms to a logic virus infection—but diagnosis after diagnosis came back negative. Nevertheless, something was very wrong with her body. A transcription error in her chassis’ firmware, perhaps, something similar to cancer in organic lifeforms that would cause anomalous and ultimately-harmful deviations.

Spying a YoRHa-issue access point tucked away in the thick forest, 2B found a shot at salvation from whatever strange affliction ailed her. These access points allowed for fast travel between predetermined locations: the booths were stocked with all of the parts needed to construct any model of YoRHa android. By stepping inside, 2B would have her current body dismantled and her consciousness transmitted to another access point of her choosing, at which the access point would reconstruct her chassis and implant her mind within it.

She cast her old body aside, leaving her marred constituent parts for the access point to break down and recycle, and emerged at the access point tucked beneath the crumbling remains of an ancient highway five kilometers to the south. She was no closer to the nearest camp than before, but it had been a necessary diversion. Checking her skin and finding it unblemished, 2B sighed in relief and set out once more.

Within five minutes, though, the scales had spread anew across both legs and had begun to creep up her torso. Her boots felt tight around her feet, her gloves tight around her hands. Wracked with panic, 2B’s head pounded and her pulse quickened, her breath falling from her mouth as hot and dry as a blast furnace. Terrified that she was overheating, 2B opted to shed her uniform at least as a stopgap measure. When she stripped off her gloves, she was horrified to see her hands change shape before her eyes, thin membranes of ivory-white skin stretched taut between her scaly fingers like bat’s wings.

9S, who would probably have been equally torn between fascination and fear were he here with her right now, would have had an explanation for this, or at the very least, a hypothesis. But all 2B had was fear.

Struck by the thought that whatever she had could be contagious, she sought to quarantine herself, turning back the way she came and heading back to the castle as fast as her legs—filled with pins-and-needles and protesting against their confining boots—could carry her. The deep aches and pangs pervading her body grew in intensity as 2B’s synthetic flesh roiled and churned beneath her scales. She fell on all fours, sharp talons tearing through her boots and digging into the road, gritting her sharpening teeth and biting down a bloodcurdling scream as thick, curved horns sprouted from behind her snowy white hair and her nose and mouth grew to form a slender, scaly muzzle. Her talons and clawed wingtips tore into the cracked asphalt beneath her as her tail, long, thick, and supple, lashed out behind her.

Before she could fully comprehend what had happened to her, 2B bounded across the ruined road with an ungainly, unsteady gait, subconsciously adjusting to her new form as new instincts began to supplant her old programming. Picking up speed, she spread her wings and took to the air. The dying light of the evening sun cast an amber hue to her shimmering white scales.

* * *

2B’s first night in her new form, consigned to the great hall of the ruined castle to which she had been drawn by some sort of psychological magnetism, was unbearably lonely—lonelier even than those horrible days following a successful execution before the next 9S was sent her way. Here she had nothing to keep her company but the tattered remnants of her elegant uniform lying in ragged shreds on the marble floor beneath her; for days afterward, a mournful, primal song echoed through the ancient ruins for whatever beasts and incurious machines were around to hear it.

Soon, she was moved by hunger. First the emptiness in her churning and protesting stomach—a feeling that had taken her a long time to identify, as she had never been hungry before—and then for… something _more._

A greater hunger lay not in her gut but in her head. It was a desire deep in the corner of her mind that pushed her toward shiny trinkets and jewels of the old world, things she had never had any interest in before. Things 9S, her precious Nines, would have liked. Magpie-like, she was drawn to them, collecting them in her talons and dragging them to her lair—she could not point to _when_ she started thinking of it as a _lair,_ but soon enough it felt as natural to her as breathing—and piling them on the floor, curling around them when she went to sleep at night and feeling oddly consoled by their presence.

But no matter how they sparkled, gold, silver, and jewels lost their luster for 2B very quickly, and she found herself hungry for something _else._ The voice in the back of her mind, ageless and alien yet somehow _hers,_ screamed at her to collect that which was precious. That which was _most_ precious.

What was most precious to her?

She found it one day as she was tearing into a wild boar for sustenance. As she raised her blood- and soot-stained muzzle from the beast’s roasted innards, she caught a scent on the wind. Something she had never smelled before, yet something intensely familiar. Spreading her wings and taking to the air, she followed that scent to its source.

And there, in the desolate remains of a city half-sunk into the shifting sands of the sunbaked desert, she saw it.

Her treasure.

* * *

9S was a perceptive boy. He had a knack for reading people’s body language and facial expressions even through the heavy black blindfolds soldiers like him were commanded to wear. And it was because of his perceptive nature and situational awareness that he enjoyed his partner’s company.

Anybody else might have found her to be aloof, frosty in demeanor, strait-laced, and unsympathetic, and therefore completely and utterly insufferable to anybody with a single circuit in their brain wired toward “fun.” Somebody like 9S, free-spirited and sociable, should have gotten along with her like a house on fire. He’d been around his partner long enough to see her drop that facade of hers more than once, though, and knew that deep down, she was far kinder and more caring than she let on.

Thanks to his prodigious situational awareness, 9S was able to notice valuable seconds before his partner that a platoon of machine warriors, draped in dusty rags and wearing sand-ravaged masks of painted wood, were lying in wait beneath the sea of sand, ready to pounce on their android enemies.

His situational awareness did not aid him in two respects, however.

He was utterly oblivious to the fact that his partner, the android whose true designation was 2E, had brought him to this desolate place to kill him.

He was also completely unaware of the fate that was about to befall him _instead._

As the two androids’ blades locked with those of the oddly-garbed machines, the shadow of a dragon with unfurled wings fell over the combatants, scaring away the machines and sending them scurrying across the dunes; 9S and his counterpart, their enemies momentarily forgotten and their weapons hanging limply at their sides, stared up in slack-jawed shock and awe at the majestic silhouette of the winged beast drifting on the wind high above them as the dragon’s great silhouette blotted out the sun.

2B swooped down and grasped 9S by the shoulders, snatching him away like a great hunting bird skimming the surface of the ocean for fish. (Considering his eventual fate, she was doing him a favor, although his squirming and panicked shouts made it absolutely clear that _he_ most certainly didn’t see it that way.)

9S continued to struggle when 2B returned to her lair. She tried to restrain him against the floor, pinning him down with her winged forelimbs as best she could. Still wildly thrashing against her ungainly grasp, he managed to free his sword and land a shallow cut on her flank, dislodging a few scales and drawing blood.

The cut was far from deep and far from a mortal wound, but it still stung more than 2B expected, and in a panic, she hastily pinned 9S to the cold marble floor.

With the clawed thumb of her wingtip, 2B brushed 9S’s cheek as gently as she could. She called his name out in a hoarse whisper, her voice unsure and unsteady—she had not spoken since her metamorphosis had run its course, for she had not known whether she could speak at all and feared to find out if she couldn’t, and besides, she’d had no one to talk to.

9S’s struggles ceased instantly when the sound of her voice reached his ears. It was different—a strange, sonorous undercurrent ran through it—yet it was unmistakably _hers._

That was when he saw them. The small details. The steely blue eyes, the mole just below the left corner of her mouth, the short mane of white hair so familiar in the way it framed a face that was _itself_ so familiar despite being nothing like any face he’d ever seen before. All of those subtleties screamed at him a single name—

His breath taken away, he gasped it out. _Her_ name. At the sound of it, 2B’s heart leaped. At long last, for the first time in weeks, she was no longer alone.

9S reached out and laid a gloved hand on her snout, so many questions churning in his mind that he could not hope to pick one and ask it. Overcome with curiosity, he withdrew his hand to remove his glove; 2B, worried that he still feared her, reared back and tried to keep her distance.

But he reached out for her again and 2B drew close again, letting him rest his palm against her snout once more. Her skin was soft and warm to the touch, much to 9S’s surprise, even her shimmering white scales. Emboldened, 2B leaned closer, stretching her long neck, and nuzzled his cheek; her breath was hot and dry, tickling his skin.

9S removed the black cloth tied over his eyes and used it to wipe the blood from the cut his sword had made; when the shallow wound was cleaned, he asked 2B to lower her head, then tied the blindfold around one of her horns. At this gesture, her pale eyes sparkled like never before.

The two of them talked well into the night, and 2B told 9S everything about their relationship. Now that he knew the truth, 9S was now aware that the mission he’d been on in the desert had been nothing more than a pretext for his assigned companion to kill him and make it look like a casualty of war. It would have been quite understandable to 2B if 9S had recoiled in horror from her now that all of her secrets had been laid bare, but he did not. Instead, he sat at her side (in her new draconic form, she towered over him even when lying down), his hand gently drifting across her smooth scales.

That night, 9S found himself resting more comfortably than he ever had in his short life. 2B’s thick, warm hide, her soft underbelly, made for the perfect mattress; her batlike wing wrapped around him, the taut skin stretched across her wingtips soft and slightly elastic, made for the perfect blanket; the crook of her neck was the most comfortable pillow he had ever used. It was so much more wonderful in so many ways than the stiff, hard cot he’d called a bed back in his quarters. And when he laid his head against 2B’s chest, he could hear a low, rhythmic rumble rising through her throat. The sound was like the hum of his own black box but louder, slower, deeper, and gently pulsing in its volume and frequency; it did not take long before her purring lulled him into a deep and contented sleep.

* * *

Before he knew it, 9S began to see 2B’s lair as a home just as she did; soon, he and 2B began to set out together in search of more treasure to fill it. The relics they found, looted from the ruins of ancient cities, certainly piqued 9S’s interest. But to him, the greatest treasure of all was the opportunity to see and study such a grand and majestic creature as 2B up close. He cataloged her eating and sleeping habits, learned what materials worked best to polish her lustrous white scales until they sparkled in the sunlight like diamonds, basked in the sparkling shallows of a nearby lake with her, and found what spices best complimented the spoils of her hunts for sustenance. Although androids didn’t require solid food, he enjoyed sharing her meals with her.

It was not long before 2B grew to love her new circumstances as well. Her new body, she realized, was not a curse, but rather a blessing (magic, which was often just as stupid and hidebound as the simplest of machines, rarely understood that what it called a “curse” was often simply a matter of perspective).

She loved the feeling of the wind beneath her wings—she had piloted flight units before, but to fly under her own power, now that she did so for sheer enjoyment rather than simply to satisfy her draconic compulsions and instincts, was an experience beyond compare. More than that, she loved to hear 9S’s exhilarated laughter when he joined her on her flights, clinging to her back, the wind whipping at his hair; he loved to see the world the way she saw it now.

One day, 2B set out without 9S, leaving him alone in the gloomy depths of the drafty, gold-filled castle she had made her home. For nearly the whole day, he saw no sign of her, and it was not until the sun began to sink into the horizon and the sky began to shift from blue to violet to black that she made her way back to the castle, having completed her secret errand.

She returned with an unconscious boy with a black coat and snowy white hair dangling by the strap of his knapsack from her jaws. A splash of crimson blood marred her snout, but it didn’t belong to him… or to her. (In fact, she had been forced to “liberate” this boy from his companion, and it was to nobody’s surprise that said companion had put up a fight and, to use a figure of speech quite literally, bloodied her nose.)

9S recognized 2B’s new catch immediately. After all, he knew his own face well enough.

The other 9S awoke soon and had a fairly predictable reaction to seeing his captor. Disorientation. Confusion. Fear. Anger. Upon seeing an exact duplicate of himself standing before him, he grew even more distraught. But with 9S’s help, 2B was able to calm her new acquisition down. That night, 2B doted on the new 9S just as she had the old, swaddling him in her wings, holding him close, nuzzling his cheek and mussing his hair with her snout, purring all the while; the elder 9S felt slighted at first before realizing that it was quite silly of him to be jealous of himself.

A few weeks later, 2B brought home another 9S. Another few weeks, another. A few days after that, another. Her routine was the same for each one. For the first few days, she would keep the newest addition to her trove of treasure closest by her side, soothing him, calming him, grooming him until he felt comfortable and safe in his new home. She tried not to play favorite among the growing ranks of her treasured 9Ses, but it was quite sensible to dote on the newcomers the most so they could adjust to their new circumstances.

As each new 9S got to know their elders, they all quickly realized that all of them knew things they shouldn’t have known—things classified as above top secret, for which the penalty for viewing was severe—and all knew that they, who like dragons themselves had grown too greedy and delved too deep in their compulsion to seek and hoard knowledge, had been marked for death.

Each 9S could only speculate how close he had been to termination (most of them had been minutes away, but there was no way for any of them to know that), but each one knew that before 2B had taken him under her wing, he had been living on borrowed time. It seemed to them that 2B had a sixth sense for swooping in just in time to rescue the latest 9S from his impending termination (in fact, one of the many perks of dragonhood was that she _did)…_ although sometimes she became _too_ zealous and would snatch up a new 9S the second he’d set foot on the Earth.

Soon there were half a dozen 9Ses living happily in her lair. Of course, they all got along well, but each 9S couldn’t help but wonder just how _many_ of them could live comfortably in this old castle before it began to feel crowded (the answer: roughly two-and-a-half dozen, so they had no reason to worry).

However, 2B was not always so blessed with perfect timing.

* * *

One day, 2B returned from her hunt beaten and bloody; little of the blood smeared across her ivory scales was her own, as the 9Ses tending to her wounds, quickly noticed. The 9S that 2B had carried back to her lair clutched in her talons never woke up; even against his black coat, the stain of blood spreading across his chest was plainly visible.

By the time she had caught his scent, this 9S had already been executed—a white sword had still lain buried in his chest; his murderer, 2B’s doppelganger, had still stood over his cooling body. Yet 2B had been compelled to bring him back all the same; he was, after all, still her treasure. When 2B had arrived on the scene, her humanoid doppelganger had tried to fight her off.

After they had bound 2B’s wounds, the eldest 9S and his counterparts tried to repair and resuscitate her latest catch, but the damage to the dead android’s black box was far too severe—it had been split nearly in half by the single stroke of a blade. 2E was, of course, a consummate professional. In the end, it was decided that the deceased 9S would be laid to rest in the catacombs beneath the castle.

2B would not let them take her newest addition to her collection away, though—at least, not for a few more hours. All afternoon she cradled the lost boy in her wings as tears glittered on her alabaster scales. She ran her clawed wingtips through his hair and held him close to her chest in the hopes that he might still feel her warmth and hear her heartbeat; then, setting him aside and letting him lie in repose, she spent hours more well into the evening curled up atop her cold, loveless mound of golden trinkets in mourning, as taciturn, terse, and withdrawn as she’d ever been.

To see his soft, boyish face frozen in eternal repose and know his eyes that would never open again dredged up painful memories of 2B’s past—and what was in so many ways still her present. She had failed him. She had failed her boy, her treasure. He could have been happy just like the others, if only she had saved him, if only she had been just a little swifter…

As she mourned, her wonderful treasures curled up at her sides, clung to her, stroked and kissed her scales, whispered words of comfort to her, and adorned her with silver and gold from her hoard to cheer her up. Each paid her back with interest the affection she had given them, the affection she had never been able to give their predecessors; and with the warmth of her boys clustered at her side and the harmonious humming of their black boxes in unison lulling her to sleep, she sank into a blissful peace.

* * *

As the months drew on, 2B collected more and more 9Ses, nearly doubling the size of her hoard; then, for months more, she detected nothing. Most of the 9Ses now living in the castle, if they could be perfectly honest, welcomed the change of pace of not having a housewarming party sprung on them every three weeks on average (and often quite more frequently in practice).

The drought lasted well over six months before 2B caught the scent of a new and unfamiliar 9S wafting on the air; giddy and nearly salivating with excitement, she took to the air and zeroed in on him.

She found her new treasure standing atop a floating tower cobbled together from metal debris that floated above the remains of an ancient amusement park, locked in heated battle against a horde of machines and another silver-haired android. 2B, fearing he was in danger, swooped in and grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him into the air in the nick of time as the floating tower trembled and plummeted from the air, tearing through the crumbling buildings beneath on its way to the ground.

Furious over being torn away from his foe, 9S fought with her all the way back to her lair, kicking and scratching and even _biting_ at her, screaming until he could barely even let out a hoarse whisper. 2B struggled with him more than any other 9S she’d rescued, nearly dropping him on several occasions, and was more relieved than ever to finally reach solid ground.

He continued to struggle against her well into the night, refusing to listen to her no matter how much she tried to explain herself to him. Hissing, crying, spitting at her, he poured out his scorn upon her. He wanted 2B. _His_ 2B. Whatever this monster holding him down was, he hated it, for it had torn him away from his revenge.

This 9S, though 2B did not know it yet, was different from all the others. Where most 9Ses had lasted anywhere from a few days to three weeks before they were marked for termination, this one had been the other 2B’s constant companion for nearly half a year and had grown more attached to her than any other in that period… and then he had seen her die, run through with her own sword. It had been a mercy killing, and he had known that—yet his grief, as grief often was, refused to be rational, and he had spent the past weeks since that horrible day in a furious haze.

There had been a horrible cataclysm; as a result, the facilities that built and deployed new 9Ses no longer existed. This 9S, this distraught, devastated boy, would be the last of 2B’s treasures. Deep down, somehow—chalk it up to that mysterious draconic sixth sense she possessed—a part of 2B knew that.

As 2B struggled to soothe and subdue him, the other 9Ses muttered darkly among themselves about the newest addition to their numbers. Why was he so violent and angry? Was there something wrong with his programming? Or was he suffering from a logic virus infection? Would 2B be safe around him?

Eventually, the newest addition to 2B’s hoard collapsed from exhaustion, no longer able to put up a fight; once his limbs had grown leaden and his eyelids heavy, 2B scooped him up in her wings with little protest and curled up around him, offering him her warmth as he drifted into a fitful sleep. She spoke softly in his ear all through the night, hoping the sound of her voice could penetrate his subconscious.

The morning after, with dawn light streaming into the dragon’s lair, 9S awoke, his rage replaced with a hollow melancholy that robbed his limbs of strength. 2B still enveloped him, her tail draped over his lap, her head resting on the crook of his neck as she slumbered. 9S no longer had the energy to hate, let alone fear, the creature that had kidnapped him, and the resonance of her sleepy purring pleasantly massaged the aches from his muscles.

He slumped over against the beast’s soft side, burying himself in her warm embrace. With his mind clearer, he realized that she had sounded just like 2B; somehow, she even smelled the same. He knew, of course, that it was impossible that the 2B he had known and forged such a strong bond with could have returned from the dead, but as he settled into his new bed, he allowed himself for just a moment to believe in reincarnation.

2B awakened and lifted her head, cracking open her steely blue eyes to see the last of her treasures snuggled at her side, his eyes half-open. A shaft of sunlight fell over his face, lighting up his snowy hair. Pleased to see him in a more docile state, she yawned—her ferociously razor-sharp fangs glittering in the light—and softly bade 9S a good morning.

In the morning sunbeams, with illuminated motes of dust dancing in the air around her, her scales shone like freshly-fallen snow in the sun and lent her an almost angelic aura. 9S reached out for her, laying his hands gently against either side of her muzzle, and rested his forehead against her snout, tears of happiness streaming down his cheeks and rolling off his chin. Even as he wept, he could not stop his mouth from cracking into a smile.

That morning, 2B gathered all her treasures under her wings. Her Nines… her precious Nines… all of them…

They would all be with her forever and ever.


End file.
